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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

When Even the Poles Plead for German Leadership...

When Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski
feels compelled to make a dramatic appeal for Germany to show more leadership in the crisis, we know we are up sh-t's creek.

According to Reuters,

"You know full well that nobody else can do
it," he said in a speech in Berlin Monday evening, referring to efforts to save
Europe's monetary union. "I will probably be the first Polish foreign
minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I
am beginning to fear German inactivity. You have become Europe's indispensable
nation."

I would rather say Europe's imbecile nation. I mooted the point that Germany, the ECB, the European Commission, somebody, anybody, might be pursuing a hidden agenda, but now I'm convinced Merkel, Schaeuble and Draghi are intent on outdoing Bruening and going down in history as the world's greatest gratuitous economic blunderers. I fail to perceive any logic in their public pronouncements. It should be clear by now that fiscal austerity and central budgetary control, not to mention ECB fiddling while Italian bond auctions burn, are not going to save the Eurozone. Some modicum of a basic understanding of the origins of the crisis are a prerequisite for solving it, and these people do not seem to partake of any. Not that Germany and other EU countries do not possess outstanding economists who have been providing sensible policy advice all through the crisis (such as Peter Bofinger in Germany and Paul de Grauwe in Belgium). So the incorrigibility of the central bankers and politicians is really inexplicable. They seem to be trapped in a simplistic, moralistic universe, not unlike Bruenings obstinate clinging to the idiotic Notverordnungen that led to Europe's twenty years of despair.

So I'll just throw my hands up in disgust and hit the beaches. Let's all enjoy the little bit of life we are still vouchsafed while the imbecilic politicians do their best to destroy it.

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About Me

I'm a research economist at UNU-MERIT (Maastricht, The Netherlands) and IIASA (Laxenburg, Austria) with a specialization in the economics of innovation, complex dynamics, economic growth and evolutionary economics. By the 2008 world crisis at the latest it became clear that macroeconomics, financial markets and economic policy cannot be entrusted anymore to mainstream economists. Hence this blog.